“The public seems to agree by a wide margin, with a recent Fox News poll finding that 59 percent of respondents felt the Supreme Court should repeal either the entire bill or parts of it. A new ABC News/Washington Post poll is even worse for the president, with a total of 67 percent saying the mandate or the whole law should be thrown out…

“‘The polling data suggests in part the hundreds of millions of dollars that was spent attacking it,’ Carney told reporters. ‘And what we’re focused on is implementing it so that Americans — more and more Americans see the benefits that it brings.'”

***

“Obama and his advisers have cast the collapse of the [grand bargain] talks as a Republican failure. Boehner, unable to deliver, stepped away from the deal, simple as that.

“But interviews with most of the central players in those talks — some of whom were granted anonymity to speak about the secret negotiations — as well as a review of meeting notes, e-mails and the negotiating proposals that changed hands, offer a more complicated picture of the collapse. Obama, nervous about how to defend the emerging agreement to his own Democratic base, upped the ante in a way that made it more difficult for Boehner — already facing long odds — to sell it to his party. Eventually, the president tried to put the original framework back in play, but by then it was too late. The moment of making history had passed…

“A president who promised to bring the country together, who confidently presented himself as the transformational figure able to make that happen, now had his chance. But, like earlier policy battles, the debt ceiling negotiations revealed a divided figure, a man who remained aloof from a Congress where he once served and that he now needed. He was caught between his own aspirations for historical significance and his inherent political caution. And he was unable to bridge a political divide that had only grown wider since he took office with a promise to change the ways of Washington, underscoring the gulf between the way he campaigned and the way he had governed…

“What happened during those days in July when the grand bargain was almost reached, but not quite, had changed him. He no longer seemed divided.

“His goal now was unequivocal: to win a second term.”

***

“Obama said Lincoln — an oft-mentioned Obama role model — understood Americans are one nation, and they rise and fall together. He contrasted that with ‘on-your-own economics’ which he says his Republican foes embrace.

“‘They’ve got a simple philosophy: We are better off when everybody is left on their own, everybody writes their own rules,’ Obama said…

“‘That shift that has taken place in the Republican Party we haven’t seen in a very long time,’ he said. ‘In 2008, the guy I was running against, the Republican nominee, he didn’t deny that climate change might be a problem, he thought it was a good idea for us to ban torture, he was on record as having supported immigration reform.'”

***

“The frustrations of the presidency once had Barack Obama reach for a literary metaphor.

“‘At times he couldn’t help feeling, as he told one associate, a kinship with the protagonist in Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea,” writes David Corn in his new book on the presidency.

“Corn writes that after the midterm elections, Obama told labor leaders in December 2010 that he held Fox partly responsible for him ‘losing white males.’

“‘…Fed by Fox News, they hear Obama is a Muslim 24/7, and it begins to seep in…The Republicans have been at this for 40 years. They have new resources, but the strategy is old,’ Corn recounted Obama as saying…

“And in a meeting with an adviser after the 2010 midterm elections, Obama slammed corporate executives for attacking him.

“‘I saved these guys when the economy was falling off a cliff,’ Obama said, according to Corn. ‘Now I get nothing but their venom.'”

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Exactly how many days did he actually serve when he wasn’t out campaigning?

JPeterman on March 19, 2012 at 10:53 PM

He was elected in 2004 and came to D.C. in January 2005. I think he began campaigning sometime in 2006. While in D.C., as you know, he specialized in voting present. One time I tried to track down any major piece of legislation which he initiated or helped shepherd through Congress. I believe I came up with zilch. So much for his service.

Prior to that his time in the IL legislature was much the same. Emil Jones took legislation that other Dems had worked on and handed it off to Obama to finish to build a “record” of work.

“Obama said Lincoln — an oft-mentioned Obama role model — understood Americans are one nation, and they rise and fall together. He contrasted that with ‘on-your-own economics’ which he says his Republican foes embrace.

“‘They’ve got a simple philosophy: We are better off when everybody is left on their own, everybody writes their own rules,’ Obama said…

Exactly how many days did he actually serve when he wasn’t out campaigning?

JPeterman on March 19, 2012 at 10:53 PM

Obama declared his candidacy for President in January 2007. So dude spent a mere 2 years in the Senate and had accomplished nothing before he decided he’d gotten bored with legislative work and sought higher office(again). According to Game Change(the book, not the HBO smear job), it was Harry Reid who suggested Obama run for President when he noticed how completely uninterested and disengaged Barry looked over his Senatorial duties.

Speaking of Obama, the deficit and spending money, Obama’s oldest daughter – Malia – is taking spring break in Mexico with 12 classmates and 25 Secret Service agents. I wonder what this boondoggle is costing the U.S. taxpayers?

In other words, he didn’t do squat and now he’s bored again. He needs to go play with the idiots at the UN.

Thanks for the info!

JPeterman on March 19, 2012 at 11:10 PM

We can debate til the end of time whether or not Barry’s the worst President in our nation’s history(I rank him 2nd only to James Buchanan), but he’s easily the laziest I’ve ever seen. Now granted, there’s no real way to know how hard the Presidents of the 18th and 19th centuries worked given how different the media was back then and none of them had cameras and reporters following them around everywhere.

But you hear enough stories about how he waited a year a half to pick up the phone and call Mitch McConnell, or how he outsourced Porkulus and Obamacare to Pelosi and Reid, or the sheer number of interviews and fundraisers he seems to find time for, or all the vacations he’s taken and golf he’s played and at some point you conclude that he doesn’t like working. Oh sure, he’ll campaign 24/7 if he could, but crafting legislation and negotiating behind closed doors is beneath him. I truly believe if he could get away with pulling a Palpatine and declaring himself ruler of the new Empire, he’d do it.

“The frustrations of the presidency once had Barack Obama reach for a literary metaphor.

“‘At times he couldn’t help feeling, as he told one associate, a kinship with the protagonist in Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea,” writes David Corn in his new book on the presidency.

“‘He had, against tremendous odds, caught a big fish, but on the long voyage back to shore, his prized catch had been picked to pieces by sharks,’ Corn writes.

Hemingway, unlike Obama, understood the human character, the desire for overcoming the odds.

It’s only fitting that Obama would think of himself as the catcher of the big fish instead of the Shark-in-Chief who devours its flesh. Mr. Corn, the Old Man’s fish, the metaphor of Hope, is being picked to pieces by a Shark Called Obama.

Bush came into office with a surplus. He left with the DOW losing 60% of its value. Nearly 5 trillion in debt. Economy in free fall. I would hate to see what would have happened if he had Obama’s circumstances when he first came into office or any republican for that matter. Obama has stabilized the country, the least you can say is thank you.

Like all liberal policies it is messaging, not SUBSTANCE, that is at fault. The fundamental flaw in their thinking is that if they just sell their messed up policies enough then the public will buy in, which is obviously just not the case. Americans by and large don’t want or like Liberal policies, but of course that won’t stop them from shoving it down our collective throats

It’s funny how protective Obama and his admin. are, fear to call the Ft. Hood shooter a Muslim, to call anyone a terrorist, they bow to Muslims, they apologize, they side with the Taliban on women…but he’s afraid to be associated with his Muslim past.

What’s wrong with being Muslim, Mr. President? If I’d be one I wouln’t vote for him, to punish his distance.